


Facade

by MicheConnor



Category: Smallville
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-17 13:47:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MicheConnor/pseuds/MicheConnor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex waits, and makes Clark talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Facade

It's not what they think. 

There, the tiny yellow house, and there, the little red barn and the small garden. Each is perfect in ceramic and paint and completely redundant. He tells himself that he doesn't need these reminders of a place that was never really home. He keeps them on his black galaxy granite mantel, dusts them, and never looks at them, because that little idyllic grouping is all that he has and all he will ever have of the Kent family.

 

~*~*~

It's not what anyone thinks.

Hope and Mercy watch impassively behind him as he stares at his adversary. He doesn't speak. Not because he doesn’t have words, but because it gives him the advantage. Bright blue eyes narrow as he waits. Clark can never let the silence stretch between them for more than a minute. 

A faint creaking sound-and he realizes that it's Clark, grinding his teeth together as he returns glare for glare for glare ad infinitum. 

It almost makes him laugh, and something . . . changes between them.

"Lex," Clark sighs. He looks worn and tired and at the end of his patience. His hair is in little wind-blown spikes that make faint ripping sounds as he pushes his big hands backward through them. 

Hope and Mercy share a glance, wince at the tiny snapping noises of hair being torn, and step back a bit more toward the door. 

"Lex, can we please just talk about this?"

He motions toward the door and the women exit the room to give its occupants the illusion of privacy, and it is only then that he folds his arms across his chest in sarcastic imitation of the primary-colored icon before him. And waits.

"Oh for God's sake..." Clark, and it really is Clark, not that poseur that he sometimes portrays, falls to his knees. "I am-I am beyond sorry."

Silence greeted this admission, but maybe there was something in his face that encouraged Clark. Whatever it was, he was not going to give it-or that alien-anything more. He was impassive. Inert. And there was NOT a twitch at his lips. He bit them. Hard.

"I was a complete ass. I have been a complete ass. I just-wanted-" Clark's voice strangled and dropped into a whisper. His face, as a matter of course, was flushed. "I am sorry for the labs in Seattle, San Jose, Chicago, Albuquerque, and Houston. I thought you were trying to kill me. I thought-Hell, it doesn't matter what I thought. I was wrong. Please. You have to understand-" He took a deep breath and looked like he meant to say more, but nothing more emerged from those bee-stung lips. 

Lex waited. He knew he could do this all day. Patience and tenacity were his virtues, and he knew that Clark, because of his innate abilities, had little experience with either. There was more. And he was going to wait to hear all of it.

"Lex." Clark rose to his feet and stood, awkwardly. Great big hands with great big fingers twitched and Lex knew-knew-that Clark was barely holding back the urge to wrap those hands around him. In hate? Perhaps. But more likely it was a hug he wanted. 

For some reason, this also amused him greatly; and perhaps it showed just a little around his eyes. Lex Luthor took a deep breath, held it, and let it out. 

Clark watched him, rapt. 

Lex sniffed. And waited. And recrossed his arms. Lifted a brow.

"And I know, I was a dick about the whole Lana thing. I just... Lex. Please, look at me." Clark sounded so tired, so worn. 

Lex blinked. Deliberately turned around and stood in what remained of the window to look out on the vastness of lights that was Metropolis.

Shuffled clompy steps moved closer. "I know you and Oliver and Bruce don't get along. They don't really get along with each other, either, you know. And they're not-could never be-what we-" Clark swallowed roughly, took those last steps to stand just behind him. "Lex." And this was a breath in his ear. "I know about the Society. I know what you did to weaken them. I know you're not what anyone thinks you are."

Lex sighed softly, lifted his chin and looked over the world below him. Surveyed his domain. Yes. He looked at the little tiny lights, felt the chill breeze as it blew through the broken shards of thick plate glass. Ignored the man behind him a little longer.

"And I am sorry about this window and the mantel. That was an accident, though. I, err, got distracted." Clark's lips brushed at the tender flesh behind his ear. "You distracted me, Lex." And his name was a prayer.

"Distracted you?" It's a barely vocalized whisper, one that he doesn't quite realized he's said until Clark answers.

"You were sleeping. You-you were beautiful." 

And strong arms wrapped around him, held him, and he leant into them and smiled. 

"I wasn't sleeping."

The smashed remains of the tiny house, barn and garden scattered, unnoticed in the wind as the twined figures simply stood and watched the lights glinting like jewels below.


End file.
